"Select Proper Boot Device", Showing No Partitions

Question

"Select Proper Boot Device", Showing No Partitions

Connor McDonald 0

Hey all, earlier this week, I was using my PC and it was working just fine. I went to shower, and when I came back, I had a black screen with the message, "Select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key."

First thing I did was go into BIOS and check drive priority. My SSD, which has my Windows installation on it, was showing up alongside my HDD and in the right order. I played around with settings (tried turning CSM on/off, UEFI to legacy/UEFI only, etc) but had no luck.

Tonight, I've been using ChatGPT (sorry Copilot) to guide me through troubleshooting. First step was to create Windows installation media so I could try and enter the "Repair my computer mode". There, I went to command prompt and entered the disk part tool. My SSD showed up when I entered the list disk command, but it was showing that it had no data on it (i.e. "233 gb total, 233 gb free").

Tried using the other tools in the repair media, but nothing worked. I also entered some of the commands left on a post about the same problem, but still no luck.

ChatGPT said the problem might be something about a partition table and suggested I use TestDisk. Couldn't find the ISO for TestDisk, so I used GParted Live which I was told includes TestDisk. Booted my computer from the ISO for GParted and I entered a Debian environment with that tool opened. It couldn't see my SSD, and that's the point at which I stopped following ChatGPT's instructions.

Any ideas on what I could try next? Should I continue on with the TestDisk/GParted stuff? Is there an easier solution? Have I lost all my files lol?

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Answer 1

Emmanuel Santana 32,585 Independent Advisor

Hello. You’re on the right path, so no need to worry just yet. If your SSD shows up in DiskPart, that means it’s still detected by the system, but the partition table may be corrupted, which is why it appears as fully unallocated space.

Before proceeding with TestDisk or GParted, please check the following:

Open DiskPart (from the Windows Recovery Command Prompt) and enter list volume. Do any volumes or drive letters show up, or is the list empty?
In your BIOS, under Storage Information or NVMe/SATA Details, verify whether your SSD’s model, firmware version, and SMART health status are displayed correctly. If these details are missing, the issue could be hardware-related (such as a controller or NAND failure). You can also run this command in the Windows Recovery Command Prompt: wmic diskdrive get status

If the status shows “OK,” your SSD’s hardware is probably intact and only the file system is affected.

One important note: if you previously enabled BitLocker or manufacturer encryption, recovery tools like TestDisk won’t be able to access your data without the recovery key.

Connor McDonald 0 Reputation points

2025-10-05T16:49:30.18+00:00
Hey Emmanuel, thanks for helping out with this.

So when I enter list volume, I see two volumes: Volume 0, which is my HDD, and Volume 1, which is the USB I'm using for the installation media. The weird thing is, though, that the HDD's letter is listed as C, but it's always been D on my computer. The USB instead is listed as D.
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------- -------- -----
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 931 GB Healthy
Volume 1 D ESD-USB FAT32 Removable 32 GB Healthy

When I ran the wmic diskdrive get status, it returned three OKs which feels like a huge relief.

I'm fairly certain I've never enabled manufacturer encryption. Positive I've never enabled BitLocker.

What do you think? What's next?
Emmanuel Santana 32,585 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-06T12:12:13.79+00:00
Good, that’s a strong sign your SSD controller and NAND are still healthy. The reason you’re only seeing your HDD and USB in list volume is because Windows can’t currently detect any partitions on the SSD, even though it exists physically. That shifts the issue to the partition table itself, not the hardware.

Here’s what to do next:

Boot again from your Windows installation media, but don’t go into Setup. Instead, open Command Prompt, type diskpart, then list disk. Confirm your SSD appears as Disk 0 (or similar) and note its size.

Exit DiskPart and launch TestDisk (download the ISO directly here): https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

Note: This is a non-Microsoft website. The page appears to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.

Boot from it and choose Analyse > Quick Search for your SSD. Let it scan, if it finds an NTFS partition, highlight it, press P to list files. If your files appear, immediately copy them to your HDD or an external drive before writing any changes.

If TestDisk shows no partitions, but SMART is fine, use PhotoRec (included with TestDisk) for raw file recovery. It ignores the damaged partition table and recovers files by type.

Once data is safely off the SSD, you can rebuild the partition table or clean-install Windows to it. But don’t write anything new to that disk until you’ve run TestDisk and confirmed what’s recoverable.
Connor McDonald 0 Reputation points

2025-10-06T17:17:36.0433333+00:00
Thank you so, so much, Emmanuel, you're a life saver.

You've already helped so much, I feel greedy asking for more help, but I did have a couple more questions I was hoping you could answer.

Should my SSD be appearing as Disk 0? I think it was showing up as Disk 1 last time I checked.

As for copying over files from my SSD, my HDD is full so I'll need to use something else. If I were to get a new M.2 SSD and install it on my motherboard, would I be able to copy the files there directly from my current SSD? Or would I need to copy the files to an external drive, recover Windows on my current SSD, and then use Windows to ready the M.2 SSD to be used?
Emmanuel Santana 32,585 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-07T16:12:04.59+00:00

You’re not greedy at all, you’re just making smart moves. Happy to help!🙂

About your questions: the disk number (0 or 1) doesn’t really matter. It’s just the order your motherboard detects the drives in, not a sign of anything wrong. Windows will boot from whichever drive actually has a working boot partition, regardless of what number it shows.

And yeah, if you get a new M.2 SSD, that’s a solid idea. Just make sure when you boot from your Windows USB stick, you do it without touching your old SSD. Once you’re in the recovery environment, run TestDisk again and copy your recovered files straight from the old SSD to the new one. That way you skip Windows entirely and avoid overwriting anything.

If for some reason both drives aren’t visible at once, use an external USB drive as a middleman. Once your files are safe, go ahead and set up Windows clean on the new SSD, it’ll usually show up as Disk 0 after installation anyway.
Connor McDonald 0 Reputation points

2025-10-11T21:51:45.3366667+00:00

Hey Emmanuel, I've hit another roadblock.

I couldn't figure out a way to access TestDrive from my USB with Windows Installation Media on it, so I grabbed a different USB and used Rufus to put Fedora "Image Live" on it.

I booted from that USB and used the terminal in Fedora to install TestDisk. I ran TestDisk and saw my SSD in the disk selection list. I proceeded, selected the Intel partition table type (it was automatically highlighted, but I have an AMD processor if that matters), ran analyse, and then nothing was listed. I still had the option to do a quick search, so I went ahead and did that. When it had finished it, again, showed nothing in its list.

I closed out of the terminal then because I didn't want to write or do anything that could damage the data. When I opened the terminal and ran testdisk again, though, my SSD is now not appearing in the disk selection menu. I also tried running sudo testdisk /dev/ with various "sd"s (e.g. sda, sda1, etc) but none of them were my SSD.

I exited Fedora, booted from my Windows Installation Media again, and did the initial steps you recommended (i.e. diskpart list volume, wmic diskdrive get status, diskpart list disk). Everything is the same, so I don't think I've messed anything up.

I looked at some cgsecurity forum posts, but couldn't find anyone else who experienced this particular sequence of problems.
Connor McDonald 0 Reputation points

2025-10-15T19:13:35.65+00:00

@Emmanuel Santana Just wanted to follow up on this and see if you have any ideas. If not, no worries, I've posted in the TestDisk forums, too.
Emmanuel Santana 32,585 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-16T10:33:26.94+00:00
Apologies for the late reply, I didn’t get any notifications from this post, so just catching up now.

The fact that your SSD showed up once in TestDisk and then vanished after the scan usually means the controller is timing out or dropping offline under load, Linux tends to handle that more strictly than Windows.

Here’s what I’d try next:

Don’t boot back into Fedora again. That repeated probing can make a marginal controller lock up completely until a power cycle. Shut the PC down fully, disconnect power, and wait 2–3 minutes before turning it back on.

Boot from the Windows installation USB again, open Command Prompt, and run:
wmic diskdrive get model,status

Then diskpart → list disk.

If the SSD reappears and shows its full capacity, connect a second USB stick and use TestDisk for Windows instead (download the 64-bit portable version here):https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

Run it directly from the USB inside that Windows recovery environment, it’s often more stable than Linux for NVMe controllers.

If TestDisk still finds nothing, do not attempt “Write” or “Deeper Search.” At that point, your priority shifts to imaging the drive before it degrades further. Boot from a rescue OS like Clonezilla Live or RescueZilla, and create a full image of the SSD onto another disk or large external drive. Once you have that image, you can safely experiment on the copy with TestDisk or PhotoRec.

If the SSD starts disappearing even in DiskPart after a few reboots, the controller firmware is failing. In that case, only a professional recovery service with a chip-level reader will work.

Note: This is a non-Microsoft website. The page appears to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.

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"Select Proper Boot Device", Showing No Partitions

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